OPptical zoom vs digital zoom

[Pammy jo]

This may seem like a silly question but, what exactly is the difference and can someone tell me what the difference between say a 4 and a 5 digital zoom would be. Thanks!
Pammyjo

 

[Sandy22]

I don't know the technology behind it all but what's important is optical zoom. Optical zoom is similar to the zoom feature on film cameras. Digital zoom goes further than optical zoom but the image loses quality very quickly. Most users turn off the digital zoom feature on their camera. It's like if you open an image on your computer and you zoom in on it - the image gets more and more pixalated. That's digital zoom.

When buying a camera you need to look for optical zoom. Most cameras have 3x optical zoom and they get more expensive as the optical zoom climbs higher. Personally I would prefer a 3 megabytes camera with a 6x optical zoom over a 6 megabytes camera with a 3x optical zoom.

You might want to ask the question on the community board - there's a lot of digital camera users there.

 

[nicurn]

my camera has a 10x optical zoom with image stabilizer. love it. I am one of the weird people who actually turn on the digital zoom. I have not had a problem with quality with it on. (I have zoomed to 13x, 16x, 20x and 22x with it for my baby bird shots). After about 22 it does get questionable. I would say if you are going to get optical zoom more than 3-4, look into image stabilizers, really a good feature! maggie